


Don't Blink. SH

by johnlockedfangirl



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Accidental Parent!lock, Angst, BAMF!John Watson, Blinking is boring, Character Death, Don't Blink, Don't even blink, Episode: s03e10 Blink, Episode: s03e10 Blink - Reworking, Greg Lestrade - Freeform, Hamish Watson-Holmes - Freeform, John Watson - Freeform, M/M, Martha Jones - Freeform, Post-Reichenbach, Sadness, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Sherlock meets Doctor Who, The Doctor - Freeform, The Doctor meets Dr. Watson, The Yard is out of their depth, Time Travel, Weeping Angels - Freeform, Wester Drumlins, Wholock, Wibbly wobbly weirdness, Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff, crossover fic, like always, major feels, post series three, rated teen for mild peril
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7651135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnlockedfangirl/pseuds/johnlockedfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
Don’t Blink. SH
</p>
<p>
Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you can believe. </p>
<p>
Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and <em>don't blink.</em> SH
</p>
<p>
Good Luck. SH  </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wester Drumlins

**Author's Note:**

> A Wholock Crossover Fic! Note: Takes place in a different / parallel universe than my [Wholock Series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/520927)
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Feedback is always welcome, and encouraged. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own either Sherlock or Doctor Who. The rights belong to the BBC.

While other blokes might favor the pub or a game of football in the park, when it came to entertainment, the residents of 221B Baker Street preferred casework. Admittedly, it was a strange way to get your kicks, but John Watson was used to it by now. He had to be; the world’s only consulting detective was his best friend, after all. Life was a constant surge of danger and adrenaline. John was never bored, anyway. He had lived through one war, though now he wasn’t quite so sure he’d make it through another. For that was the price you paid when you walked with Sherlock Holmes. Dare to match his stride, and you might not ever run again. And after he had nearly been murdered at his own wedding, John had come to be rather unimpressed by the world’s happenings. 

But even the army doctor had to admit something strange was going on, when the great detective accepted the case of the haunted house. 

Now, it wasn’t really haunted. It was simply an old, empty house on top of a hill, but the rumors gave it character. Wester Drumlins was its name. After it had stood for nearly two and a half years as a cold case, slowly gathering dust, Sherlock had practically leapt with excitement when Lestrade had asked him to reopen it and survey the scene. 

John hadn't the foggiest notion what he found so intriguing. They had handled disappearances before, but nothing quite like this.The case itself was textbook. Over the past two years, many a curious person had driven up to the old manor and simply vanished into thin air, leaving their vehicles behind. They might have simply gone missing, or wandered off, or been abducted. Any number of unfortunate but relevant possibilities presented themselves. 

But the singularly most unusual thing about the case was also the pride of the Wester Drumlins collection: a blue police box from the 1960’s. It was painfully out of date and practically useless. They couldn’t even get it open. It had an ordinary lock, but nothing fit. Not even Sherlock’s unusually advanced skill of picking locks managed to budge it. 

Nevertheless, Sherlock had accepted the case, and now they were deep within the heart of the mystery. 

“Remind me again why we had to come at midnight?” John grunted as he clambered up the tall iron fence guarding the edge of the property. Sherlock scaled it as quietly as a cat and swung his long legs over the rusted rail. 

“Less chance of interruption. I don’t want those fools on the police force interfering with my work. Especially Anderson. His face still puts me off, particularly with that hideous beard.” 

John debated arguing that it would be easier in daylight, not to mention that it was improbable Lestrade or any of his officers would even want to come poke around a place like this, but he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He would just be wasting his breath, for Sherlock had already leapt to the ground and was gliding up to the house with his long, silent strides. 

“Come on, John!” He called. 

John rolled his eyes and awkwardly scrambled over the gate. He would never have been doing these things had he still been with Mary. Or perhaps he would have; there was no room for speculation. John was a rather reserved man for all the time he spent with Sherlock; _still has trust issues_ weighed over him heavily. Seeing as she’d lied about everything, past and pregnancy included, shooting Sherlock had been the last straw. He and Mary were no longer an item. 

John cast those unwelcome thoughts out of his mind and landed ungracefully in a pile of dead leaves. He followed Sherlock, brushing broken twigs out of his sandy hair as he flicked on his torch and cast it around the grounds. They were in a pitiful state of disrepair. The garden was tremendously overgrown, with generations of ivy and weeds born and dying in the same maggoty soil, choking their descendants with their withered roots until they formed a wall of rotting organic substance. 

The house had probably been very grand once, with copper carvings and elegant brick, but now it was just crumbling mould and mortar, a grinning, empty skull perched upon a mound of dirt. The skull had an eyepatch as well, for several holes in the long-dead structure had been hastily boarded up with bent nails and half-rotten planks. 

The dead leaves of a hundred autumns crunched beneath John's feet as he made his way to the door. The dim shafts of moonlight barely penetrated the wispy clouds and web of stars. His torch, too, seemed ineffectual, and he nearly ran into Sherlock. The detective was standing stock still, staring up at the dark windows of the house’s upper floor. John directed the soft glow of his torch over them. He received the dusky haze of its reflection off the dirty glass in return, but saw nothing. 

“What are you looking at?” He asked. He didn’t find anything especially unusual about the whole house, but then again, Sherlock saw much more with one glance than John could even begin to perceive, even if he’d had a whole night to prowl the grounds. 

“Nothing.” Sherlock replied, and brought out his own torch and gave the house a quick scan before finally moving to enter. 

John followed, but halted after he had taken a few steps. He thought he had seen something move out of the corner of his eye. He glanced around. The night was still, with not even a breath of wind to stir the silence. The quiet at that moment seemed particularly deafening. He shook his head. It must have been his imagination. He scaled the sagging steps of the porch and went in after Sherlock. 

The entrance way was rather dull and dusty. The furniture had been swept against the walls and covered with sheets of plastic, chairs and tables long forgotten under their ghostly shrouds. A mirror, similarly draped, leaned against a dresser which squatted dejectedly in the corner. A large grandfather clock so old it must have been an antique when the house was new lounged next to a drooping staircase. Lonely light fixtures hung far apart in the shadows of the eaves, rusting slowly in exile. 

The next few rooms were just as dreary. The antechamber that led deeper into the manor housed nothing more than a bare, moth-eaten carpet strewn with bits of mouldy soil. The skeleton remains of a once-grand chandelier hung from bits of wire and cracks in the plaster. They had passed the fixture’s twin several rooms back; its metal arms bore a shroud of dry plastic on which dew clung like a sheen of ectoplasm. 

Sherlock had surveyed the damp chambers in silence, but now he pushed open a door and uttered a low cry of discovery. John had no idea why, for this room looked just like the rest; a dry and dusty refuge for shadows, stripped to the bare bones. 

It was in the very back of the manor, and led out into the garden. The wallpaper was of a rather garish hyacinthine pattern; though John had no reason for complaint, if anything were to judge by the unaesthetic walls of their own flat. The pattern of faded leaves was faintly reminiscent of Bacchus and his lively rendezvous, as if nature wished to reach out and transform the room into an extension of the grounds. The grounds themselves, it seemed, had completely embraced this idea, for the brittle skeletons of vines and withered stems littered the floor, and an excruciatingly diligent plant had snaked its way between the loose mortar and taken up its final resting place in the decaying ashes of the hearth. John moved over to the windows; they were shattered and bits of glass were scattered across the lawn and through the corpses of vegetation. 

Sherlock stepped up to the wallpaper and picked at a corner that had separated from the mouldering plaster. John turned at the sound of ripping paper. A great swath of wallpaper came loose from the wall, revealing the bare surface beneath. But it was not quite so bare. There was writing on the wall, six scrawling letters spelling out a single-word: 

_BEWARE._

The threat itself was poor, nothing they hadn’t seen a hundred times before, and was most likely some schoolboy prank, but the way it had been conveyed suggested the writer seriously meant it. Sherlock continued pulling, and the rest of the sentence was revealed. 

_BEWARE THE WEEPING ANGEL._

John's brow furrows as he cast the shredded ribbon of paper aside. Beware the Weeping Angel - What the hell was that supposed to mean? He might have ignored the puny threat and left well enough alone, but there was more writing. 

With a resolute motion, John caught the edge of the paper with a fingernail and ripped. Both men worked until the wall was nearly stripped, with ribbons of the ghastly paper hanging like entrails from the timbres of the house. John stepped back to read it better. 

_OH, AND DUCK!_

This was odd. His mind strayed back to the notion of a prank. The paint looked old. Who would write this, wallpaper over it, and leave it to rot? It didn’t make sense. Especially considering the next fragment. 

_NO, REALLY, DUCK!_

A persistent vandal? It was definitely some kind of joke, just another piece of graffiti, nothing unusual save its obscure location. But the next part of the sentence sent any thoughts of tricks and rebellious teenagers out of John’s mind for good. 

_SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR WATSON, DUCK,_ _ **NOW!**_

John had to pause and ponder for a moment. What sort of mystery was this, really? How could their names be here, when the house had been boarded up for ages? The writing was nearly as old as the manor, perhaps even older. However strange it was, John was not about to obey it. The idea was ludicrous. There was no possible reason for them to duck. “What does it mean?” 

Sherlock’s keen eyes swept over the message again. “It means we’re in danger.” 

John’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to reply, but Sherlock’s whisper erupted out of the darkness. 

“Vatican Cameos!”


	2. Statues

His command caused John to shut up immediately and he obeyed without a second thought. They dropped to the ground, and not a moment too soon, for a heavy ceramic vase crashed into the wall right where their heads had been. It hit the wall with such force that it disintegrated into millions of shards of dust and paint. If they hadn’t moved their skulls would have been crushed. John reached for his gun.

“Oh, sh - ” But his waistband was empty. Nowadays he never went anywhere unless it was stowed away against the small of his back. In Sherlock’s late-night hurry to leave, John had grabbed his coat but little else, and he felt abruptly naked without the weapon. 

Sherlock noticed, of course, and as he stood and sprang across the room he said, “Don’t worry, you won’t need it.”

“Why not? Whoever threw that, they could still be here.”

“That doesn't matter. What worries me now is this. Look.”

Sherlock had moved into a crouch and pulled out his magnifying glass. John came over to see what he was doing. Sherlock’s object of worry was little more than a pile of dust, a thin film of time scattered over the cold floor. 

John didn’t understand. “Okay, I’m lost. Explain.” 

Sherlock huffed a bit impatiently, as if he couldn’t believe that this was the time for John to show his utterly normal brain capacity. “Look at the dust. This house has been abandoned for ages, nobody’s even touched the place, except those who have disappeared. But the dust in this room is the thickest, meaning it was the least visited. I’d say we’re the first people to come in here since that message was written. Our footprints are clearly defined; you can see exactly where we walked. ”

John looked at him expectantly. “So…?”

“So, the rest of the room has remained untouched, except for here. The dust has been disturbed, but neither of us even came close to this area of the room.”

“Well, the windows are broken, so it might have been the wind.”

“No, wind has a very distinct pattern. I’ve written a blog entry on it. No, it was something else.”

“What was it, then?”

Sherlock stood. His eyes had a faraway look, as they always did when he was thinking. “Something else. Something strange. Something’s _off,_ here…” His head whipped around with such speed that John was sure his neck had broken. Sherlock stared out the broken window, into the overgrown courtyard. 

John could see nothing of interest. Just a yard in desperate need of tending, and an angelic statue weeping for the garden’s pathetic state. “What is it?” he asked. 

“I have an idea. Well, four. So far.” Sherlock replied. His eyes narrowed, scrutinising the garden before they flicked to the ceiling. “But I need to have a look upstairs.”

The stairwell was in a bad state, with creaking boards and several missing entirely. Sherlock bounded up them two at a time with his usual hurry, while John was a bit more careful.

He halted halfway up. He was sure he’d heard a noise behind him. He turned and pointed his torch around, but there was nothing. The furniture was just as quiet, just as immobile as it was before. Shrouded lamps, broken boards, and a silent statue, peeping eerily out of a half-open closet door. He shivered at the sight, shrugged off his nerves and ascended to the upper floor. There were several rooms, and he wandered through three empty bedrooms and a large hallway before he found Sherlock.

He was pacing the room and muttering to himself. John assumed he was deep in thought and didn’t want to distract him. Besides, there was something very interesting about this room. The other rooms on this floor had been empty and cobwebbed. However, this one seemed to be dust free, and unlike the others, there was furniture.

Several tall objects were scattered about, covered with long white bed sheets instead of plastic. The curiosity was overwhelming. John simply couldn’t help himself. He tugged at one of them, and it slithered to the ground. Underneath was a statue of an angel. Like its counterpart in the garden, it had its head bowed and its eyes covered. He unsheathed the others and found more statues. All were in similar stages of grief, depicted in poses of anguish, all covering their eyes. 

_Strange,_ John thought. Why were all these angels weeping? Why had they been put there, and who were they mourning? It didn’t make any sense to him. 

The whole case made no sense to him. Where had those people gone? Why had they come here in the first place? The house was odd, certainly, but he could see nowhere where they could have disappeared off to. He had too many questions and little to no information to go off of. He was at a dead end.

Sherlock, however, was not. He had looked over the angels with a keen eye, and saw something which John hadn’t: clasped in one of the statue’s hands was a length of cord, and on that cord was a key. Sherlock yanked at it, and it came loose from the stone’s iron grip. He held it up and inspected it. It seemed perfectly ordinary, yet even he could not deny that it gave him an eerie feeling, though he would never go so far as to admit it was something quite close to fear. 

“Why is there a key here? What does it unlock?” John asked.

“I don’t know.” Sherlock handed the key to John. The small piece of metal and thin chain seemed much heavier than they actually were, under the weight of the statement Sherlock had just uttered. 

But then there came a slight noise, just loud enough to trick his mind into thinking it was nothing. John would have dismissed it as such, had he not seen Sherlock’s eyes widen slightly. He had heard it, too. The detective put a finger to his lips, warning his blogger to be absolutely silent. John nodded, put the key in his pocket, and quietly followed him out of the room. 

They began creeping down the stairs, making as little noise as possible. Their torches slid around the walls, and in the absolute quiet, John could have sworn he was able to hear both of their hearts beating with the heightened rhythm of fear. They tried to be noiseless, but unfortunately the age of the staircase did not allow that to happen. Now, after decades of diligence, it simply gave up, and several boards gave way beneath Sherlock’s feet. 

Acting on pure military instinct, John grabbed hold of him before he had had sufficient time to fall more than halfway through the floor. He hauled him out of the hole with difficulty, for despite his practically anorexic behaviour the detective was heavier than he looked. Both men were breathing heavily, strung out on adrenaline, and the gaping hole loomed darkly at their feet. 

They manoeuvred around it and descended the rest of the stairs with the utmost caution. With unspoken words they agreed they were done investigating upstairs, but verbally Sherlock thanked John for saving him. John told him not to mention it, and the high-functioning sociopath decided it was time to have a brief peek in the cellar. However, as he (very) carefully walked downstairs, a certain chill settled upon his shoulders, and he adjusted his scarf and popped his collar to reassure himself. When he had fallen he had not only felt empty space beneath his feet. He had felt- and of this he had no doubt- he had felt, just for a moment, something very much like a hand seize his ankle. 


	3. The Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I haven't abandoned this work. So sorry for the long wait. Things happen, but I do plan on working on it more regularly, and updating more often! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! As always, feedback is welcome. :)

John had decided to remain on the ground floor, while Sherlock went down to explore the cellar. The ex-army doctor swept his torch around the room with long, languid swipes, trying to ignore the cold breeze that tickled the hair on the nape of his neck. They were just at an old house in the middle of the night. Of course it would seem scary, but there was nothing to be afraid of. Yet he could not help the small stone of fear that weighed heavy and cold in his stomach. His torch alighted on the odd message, and he quickly darted it away. He did not want to think about the fact that their names were written here, and had been here waiting for them forages. It was likely that Sherlock would be able to pinpoint the exact date it had been written, the prick, but as it was John guessed it had been put there a very, very long time ago. Perhaps even when the manor was being built. His torch slid across the letters.  


_Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson…_  


Nothing unusual about the spelling, save the fact it was impossible for their names to even be there.  


But something about it caught John’s attention. Why “Doctor”? Why not shorten it? The abbreviated “Dr.” was much easier to write- and judging by how the letters softened near the end suggested the vandal had been running out of paint. So why write the full word and waste resources? John thought about it. In the end he chalked it up to an old habit, but he knew nobody who would have the mindset so as to use “Doctor” as a noun so often.  


Then something caught his eye: there was a section of the wall they had missed, a long chunk of paper at the bottom, near the cracked baseboard. A small smudge peeked out from beneath it, and John peeled it back in curiosity.  


There was a signature to this strange message, which read:  


_Love from, The Doctor. (1895)._

The Doctor? Doctor _who?_  


That didn’t tell him anything. And 1895 was just a year. It didn’t tell them how, or why this Doctor had come way out here to send a message to a couple of blokes who wouldn’t find it until more than a century later. He most definitely wasn’t alive anymore. What had he been trying to accomplish, anyway? Granted, it _had_ saved their lives, but how could he have known that a vase was going to fly out of nowhere _years_ before it even happened? This mystery was getting stranger and stranger by the minute.  


It was probably a useless bit of information, but he guessed Sherlock would like to know who had sent this message.  


“Sherlock! Need you up here!” He shouted down to the cellar, but the detective gave no indication he had heard. John sighed. He’d go down and tell him properly in a moment.  


He turned his light out to the garden, and it found the statue of the angel. Even though it was weeping, it still gave him comfort, for whomever had owned this house had to have been even slightly religious, and that was a good thing. Wasn't it?  


He had nothing to worry about. It was just a trick of the mind, a stupid superstitious feeling that made his stomach tie itself in a knot.  


John swept his torch around the garden again. Dead plants, crumbling stone, a dead and dry fountain, half buried in moss. The statue.  


The statue.  


John took a step back, instinctively.  


The statue had moved.  


The longer he stared at it, the more certain he became. It was closer to the house by about five feet. But that was impossible. No, it wasn’t, because he could see the square patch of bare earth where it had previously stood.  


It had definitely moved. But -- by itself? He shook his head.  


“Ha, Sherlock. Very funny,” he said as he walked closer. His rising panic vanished in an instant. What was that phrase Sherlock was fond of berating him with? _When you have eliminated the impossible…_  


It was utterly impossible for the statue to have moved by itself, and, therefore, it hadn’t. Simple. Sherlock was probably playing a distasteful but elaborately planned trick on him. It was a hoax, a practical joke funny only to the odd mind of a high-functioning sociopath.  


Except Sherlock Holmes hadn’t pulled a practical joke on anyone in his life. Excluding when he had faked his death nearly three years ago, but that had been a rather grim necessity at the time...  


John walked around the statue. He could admire Sherlock’s work, for this prank had him fooled. He expected the detective had meant to scare the living daylights out of him, and it had worked. But now that he knew it was a trick, he had get Sherlock to give up the ruse.  


“The game’s over, now, Sherlock! I know what you’re doing-- trying to scare me! Well, you got me, you daft man…” Silence fell as John’s voice weakened and trailed off. The lingering echo of his voice faded away. A few flakes of dust sloughed off of the wall before him, and John felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.  


“Sherlock, are you even listening to me?”  


Silence.  


John sighed. Typical. What was that detective even doing down there?  


John turned, leaning on the basement doorway as he stared down the dark stairwell.  


It was all so odd, too odd even for Sherlock’s strange habits. So odd that John got the remarkably queer feeling he was being watched. Ridiculous, but still. He rolled his shoulders, ignoring the twinge from the left one, and shook off the feeling. Exploring an old house in the middle of the night would give anyone the chills. Except perhaps Sherlock.  


John took a deep breath. He’d been an army doctor. This was nothing, compared to what he’d seen. It was dark and scary, and that was all.  


Still, there was no response from the basement below. Sherlock had likely become engrossed in who-knows-what. Or he’d managed to fall through the floor again.  


Well, John had quite finished up his own investigation. He’d just have to wait for Sherlock to voice his own theories to find out what “obvious” details he’d been lacking.  


Sighing, he turned around. A yelp caught in his throat.  


The angel statue had moved -- and it was no mere trick of the light. It had changed. It was now less than a foot away, and it bore an impossible, terrible snarl upon its stone face. Its arms were outstretched, as if to grab him. Ragged claws tipped the edges of its stony fingers.  


John quickly backed away. His foot caught in a snag on the floor, and he stumbled, nearly falling. His back was now against the wall. He called out, pitching his voice so it would hopefully be heard downstairs. 

“Okay, Sherlock. That's quite enough!” More silence. His voice hardened. “Sherlock! I said, that’s _enough._ I’m scared now.”  


And he was, the sheer oddness of the moment serving only to make him more frightened. Statues that could move around an abandoned house? Preposterous!  


The sheer impracticability of the situation forced him to consider the one possibility that he had not: it was all real. Perhaps this was how the people had disappeared. An old house, good for exploring at night with a torch in hand and an idling vehicle in the driveway. Who wouldn’t have been intrigued? And then it all turned sour when they discovered the house _wasn’t_ completely empty.  


“Sherlock!” John’s voice was cold, steady. His hands however, were not. 

The torch shuddered and slipped from his clammy grip. “Sher -- !”  


As the light hit the floor it spluttered out. John’s mobile soon followed suit; the crack of the screen fell on deaf ears as it skittered away from him. Darkness enveloped the room, but it was a different kind of darkness that John fell into. The dust he’d disturbed fluttered to the floor.  


In the blink of an eye, John was gone.  


Then, free from the gaze of any living creature, the weeping angel returned to its corner of the garden, recumbent among the dying plants. It covered its eyes once more. Silence fell thickly upon the room.


	4. Flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some backstory! Also, Lestrudel is here.  
> Shortish chapter, but I promise it'll make sense in the end!
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.  
> Yes, I'm one of /those/ authors. I know I'm rubbish at updating. 
> 
>  
> 
> I love y'all!

_“Sir! Miss? Do you have a phone? Please -- Anyone, do you have a phone?” ___

____

At approximately 10:02 p.m. that night, two hours before John and Sherlock caught a cab to Wester Drumlins, a man had appeared in the street just outside St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Apparently frantic, he’d wandered the street for a good ten minutes, asking for the time and trying to barter for people’s phones with money that looked like it’d been filched right out of a museum. It probably had.  
And that was not the strangest thing about the man. He wore a flat cap over greying hair, and clothes that were horrendously outdated; at a glance, they had come from the last century, give or take a few decades. He was obviously mad, according to eyewitnesses.  


The police were phoned from one of the mobiles people had selfishly refused to give up, and at 10:35, precisely, they arrived on scene and the man was immediately taken aside to be asked a few questions.  
Another squad car pulled up. “Oi! What’s going on here?” Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade was not going to put up with any nonsense on the scene, especially since Sherlock had not been called in.  


One of his more competent officers began to explain as they walked over to the man. 

“He just appeared, sir! Out of nowhere. He’s been trying to panhandle people’s phones, sir, but he won’t tell us who he wants to call.”  


“Who is he?”  


“He won’t tell us.”  


Greg sighed. “You lot. Let me talk to him. Oi, give him some space!” he barked at his officers, getting between Sally and the man, who were in some sort of heated discussion.  


The man grabbed Greg by the lapels, practically in hysterics. “I need a phone! I have to call - have to…”  


He sagged dangerously to the side, and Greg went from trying to release his grasp to trying to steady him. “Here! Mate, sit down. Down we go. That’s it.” He got the man settled, shouting at his officers for a shock blanket and water.  


As the man sat there on the pavement, Greg saw a few tears worm their way down his wrinkled cheeks and into his greying whiskers.  
The man was mad, all right. 

Mad with grief.  


And what was wrong with the people? True, he was strange, and in shock, but what happened to having the proper respect for one’s elders? Greg settled the blanket around the man’s shoulders, getting him to sip at the water. 

“Hey. Who are you? What’s so important about this phone call?”  


The man took a deep breath. He pulled out a yellowing piece of paper with a phone number written on it. It looked vaguely familiar, as did the handwriting. “Call this number. Please. Just - please,” the man said.  


Might as well do what nobody else apparently could. Greg typed in the number. Surprisingly, his phone recognised it, and as it rang he turned to the man, his brow furrowing. “Why do you need to call Sherlock Holmes?”  


The man coughed a little. “I need to speak with Holmes. I need to…need to speak with him… I…” The man coughed again, and the hand that stifled it was specked with blood. The man went pale. His eyes rolled back into his head.  


“Call some medics!” Greg shouted, his phone clattering to the street as he stopped the man from toppling over, reaching for his wrist. They were outside the bloody hospital, after all. He didn’t like the ashy sheen that he’d taken on. But at least he still had a pulse.  


Minutes went by in a whirlwind. The medics rushed outside, and Lestrade spoke with one of them, telling him what little he knew. They loaded him up into a stretcher, taking him away.  


Donovan approached Greg, sighing. “What a nutter. Kept asking for the freak,” she reported.  


“What were you possibly arguing about? You saw what state he was in!” Greg chided.  


“He kept asking for my phone. He had one of his own! I saw it, in his pocket!” Sally protested. “Kept handing me some paper. Had the freak’s handwriting on it.”  


Greg frowned, looking down at the small slip of paper, still in his hand. “Sherlock’s writing.” He handed it to her. “Take it. I want to see what you can get from it.”  


“Why not just call the freak! He wrote it!”  


“Donovan. Quit calling him a freak. He didn’t write it recently, I can tell you that. Just do it.”

\------------

“Sir?” One medic flashed a light in the old man’s eyes, while the others hooked him up to IV’s and an oxygen mask. “Sir, can you hear me?”  


A moan from behind the mask.  


“What’s your name?”  


Another moan. “W… on.”  


The medic took the mask off him for a moment. “Sir, what was that?”  


The old man fixed him with a deep, frightened gaze.  


“Watson,” he whispered.


	5. What Sherlock Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present - Sherlock's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I actually updated in a timely manner.
> 
> More soon!

12:35 am.

Sherlock had chosen to explore the cellar, quite unaware of what was transpiring above. It was a stereotypically dreary place, full of dripping pipes, wooden beams of shoddy workmanship, and spiders. He had tried very hard not to be distracted by a particularly intriguing _loxosceles reclusa._

__He first surveyed the ceiling, and sure enough, he found the gaping hole wherein he had fallen. There was nothing between the space and the concrete floor to break his fall, and had his blogger not caught him, he would have ended up with a broken leg at the very least._ _

__But he had felt something grab him. He distinctly remembered the sensation of intense pressure, in five different points varying in location upon the junction between his calf and foot. It was exactly like a hand had gripped him and let go in a split second. But there was nothing there. Nothing even remotely resembling a hand, not a pipe, not a stray board, nothing. He knelt to inspect the ground. In the swirling dust motes did he read a surprising proclamation: something had been there, quite recently. He was sure whatever it was, it had been his almost-attacker. But it had moved. Odd. There was no one else here, so who - or _what_ \- had grabbed him? And why? For what purpose. Questions he was determined to answer before the night was through.__

___He distantly heard John's voice, but he could not make out precisely what he was saying. It annoyed him slightly. Couldn't John see they were on an important case? Why was he making all the racket? This wasn't a joke, it was serious business. Yet his faithful blogger knew better than to make unnecessary noise, and he'd only shout if he had good reason to. Sherlock would go find out what he needed in a minute._ _ _

___But then his torch found an array of objects that pushed all thoughts of John and arachnids out of his mind. Amid the stacks of old shrouds and warped boxes, his torch alighted upon a stone figure, another just beside it, and behind them, he caught a glimpse of blue._ _ _

___The police box, from the station. He might not have seen it at all had he not glimpsed the statues surrounding it. But how had it gotten here? It seemed like a joke, but it was in very poor taste. John would never have done something like this, so it must have been someone from the Yard. Yet even that didn't make sense, for none of the officers seemed the joking type. Perhaps it had been Anderson, but that was highly unlikely since he didn't have the IQ to even imagine such an elaborate prank._ _ _

___He crept closer to the box and walked around it, the gears in his mind palace whirring. Meanwhile his doctor had fallen silent. Sherlock barely noticed, and he ignored the small but insistent thought that told him John had gone quiet quite abruptly._ _ _

___He looked up and down the front of the box. The sign in the middle stated it was a police telephone, free for use of public. Sherlock smirked slightly to himself. Oh, the calls he would have made had he encountered one of these when he was a child! He tugged at the edge of the panel. The phone within was still intact, but disconnected. Dusty, intriguing, but not very useful. He shut the panel, a smirk still on his face. His torch trailed down the black embossed lettering once more._ _ _

___However, his smile faded as he read the last line. It was the simplest of instructions: Pull to Open. But the way the door hung suggested it had been pushed every time._ _ _

___"How odd," Sherlock mused as he took ahold of the handle. He fingered the small keyhole with his thumb, then something clicked in his mind. A door that wouldn't open, and a key without a lock. It couldn't be a coincidence. Sherlock never ignored coincidences unless he was busy; besides, the universe was rarely that lazy. Sherlock needed that key. He was certain it would fit. All he had to do was go and get it from John._ _ _

___A sudden cold tingle doused his spine. He was being watched; yet he hadn't heard John descend the stairs. He turned. No one was there. Just a statue, but it had moved. He was certain of this, because the angels had been surrounding the box, one for each corner, but now it was directly behind him. That was impossible. He eliminated that conclusion. There was a perfectly logical explanation for all this. Darkness could be disorienting at times. It was his eyes misleading him, but he had always been able to trust his senses before, so why would they deceive him now?_ _ _

___He shook his head. It was a trick of the shadows and nothing more. He feinted turning back to the box and whirled around suddenly. The statue was even closer, and there were two of them now, side-by-side, where there had only been one before._ _ _

___Impossible. Statues couldn’t move, and certainly not within the blink of an eye. Impossible._ _ _

___Sherlock was scared, actually scared, such as he hadn't been in a very long time. He clamped down on his panic, shoving it into a corner of his mind palace. He had to be calm, think logically, divorce himself from his emotions and figure this out._ _ _

___He let a slow breath out into the quiet of the basement. John's silence suddenly weighed very heavily upon his mind. He had been far too quiet for far too long._ _ _

___The shrill sound of his phone ringing broke the silence. Sherlock jumped, fishing his mobile from his pocket. Lestrade. Why was Lestrade calling him at this hour? Sherlock had promised to update him when he had an answer._ _ _

___“Hello?” he asked._ _ _

___Muffled voices, echoing from a distance. No one was directly by the mouthpiece. Lestrade’s distinct voice could be heard, questioning. _“-- call Sherlock Holmes?”__ _ _

___There was a deep, rattling cough - the sign of an undiagnosed heart condition if there ever was one - and a fainter voice, answering: _“I need to… need to speak to him…”__ _ _

___“Hello? Lestrade? I’m on the line,” Sherlock said._ _ _

___But then there was the clamouring of startled voices, Lestrade shouting about medics, and the clatter of the phone as it apparently fell to the street. The line went dead._ _ _

___ _

___Sherlock frowned. Something was wrong. But that was Lestrade’s problem now. And Sherlock had to get back upstairs. Sherlock forced himself to walk up out of the cellar normally, but as he mounted the stairs and as the silence grew louder, a part of him succumbed to the childhood fear of dark things and he bolted the rest of the way up. The pounding of his shoes echoed the pumping of his heart; he was afraid now and not bothering to hide it._ _ _

___He got his breath back at the top of the stairs. The ground floor was no less chilly than the basement. He wrapped his coat around him as he took in the uneasy silence. A chilly hand wormed its way into his heart and squeezed. He was afraid._ _ _

___And for good reason, too, because John was nowhere to be found._ _ _

___“John! … John?”_ _ _

___He’d said he would remain in earshot, but there was no sign of him, and the good doctor was not one to break promises. Therefore something had happened, but what? Sherlock looked around, attempting to deduce past the fear clouding his mind. There was nothing here. Nothing had been disturbed save the statue from the garden. It had moved. It was in the middle of the room now. No, that was out of the question. Statues were not able to move, and that was a fact. But the facts themselves were being disproven before his very eyes. Perhaps John had moved it - but why? There was no reasonable motive. The ex-army doctor was stronger than he looked, of course, but Sherlock would have heard him dragging the heavy figure across the floor. Impossible for his blogger to have moved it._ _ _

___Sherlock would have even begun to doubt his own sanity had he not noticed something. He bent down to have a look, and pulled out his magnifying glass._ _ _

___He could see John’s footprints in the dust. The motes had recently been disturbed, proving that it was indeed his blogger who had been here, and not too long ago. He followed them carefully, his mind working overtime. He noted each mark, mentally calculating John’s stride, walking pace, and even what position the rest of his body had been in at the time._ _ _

___It was like a dusky hologram inside his head; he could see John now like a ghost, imprinted upon his retinas. He moved about the room like a projection. He had stood by the cellar door for a length of time, then walked over to the wall which bore the writing. Here his steps abruptly halted; perhaps something had caught his eye. Sherlock saw that something had; there was more writing on the wall, and he stowed it away in his mind palace for future reference. After apparently reading the message, John had faced the cellar door for a moment. Sherlock surmised that was when he had began talking. Then John had turned back to the garden and--_ _ _

___And stepped back. He had stepped back. Just a half-step, very small. But in that small smattering of dust Sherlock read everything he needed to know. John had seen the statue move._ _ _

___From the position of the prints he had been facing the garden. The statue would have been in his line of sight. But he had moved back. This indicated a change; he had been surprised by something. It was pure instinct to step back, away from the danger, and all evidence proved that this danger had been the statue. But it had been only a small step. Clearly he had only been surprised, and thought the danger minimal or unimportant. Curiosity had been his downfall; Sherlock watched as he shifted and crept toward the statue. But the prints were now slightly more defined in the front; he had been tiptoeing, indicating heightened fear or suspicion. Subconsciously, he had known something was wrong, but he hadn’t been able to believe it, for why else would he walk toward a threat? He had walked around in a circle, seeing but most likely not observing what he saw. A slight shuffle of his foot and Sherlock learned that he had been talking again, turning minimally towards the cellar so as to make sure the detective heard him. There was another step back, this one larger. The dust had scattered in a crazy pattern; adrenaline had driven this reaction. The danger was greater, then. The statue had moved twice, evidently._ _ _

___And then things really started to pick up. John had backpedalled and even slipped at one point, in a small depression in the floor. He had been scared, then, for Sherlock spotted traces of where his old limp had acted up. He had been forced against the wall, and then--_ _ _

___And then--_ _ _

___Nothing. No more footprints. The trail simply ended there. Sherlock leaned in closer. Perhaps he had missed something. No. They stopped, they just stopped, as if he had disappeared into thin air. But that was ridiculous. He couldn’t have vanished. But it seemed as though he had. The trail ended there. His footprints indicated he should be standing there still, but John was gone._ _ _

___As if he had never existed._ _ _


End file.
